


The Devil Within

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Creepy, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 08:52:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12955686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: A dead body and no leads. Same old, same old.





	The Devil Within

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fififolle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fififolle/gifts).



> Written as a Christmas present for the lovely Fififolle who wanted Kent pining for Chandler.

The body was lying in the grey slush of a London winter, its arms spread out like an angel's wings. There was a smudge of red across his forehead, the only sign that he wasn't just a drunk sleeping in the street.

Chandler was huddled in conference with Miles and Kent tried to concentrate on the body and not look towards Chandler too often; that way madness lay.

“Cheer up, could be worse,” Mansell said, nudging Kent in the shoulder. Kent didn't dignify that with an answer.

“Come on, children,” Riley said, “boss wants us doing door to door.”

Kent sullenly moved after her, determined not to look towards Chandler for at least five minutes.

He lasted two.

* * * * *

The door to door was going as they usually did, no one in, no one wanting to talk to the police, no one wanting to talk about the dead man but did want to talk all about the noisy neighbours and those kids on the corner who are definitely selling drugs because just look at them, what else would they be doing?

Kent was cold and bored and wasn't sure what he was even doing any more. He knew what he wanted to be doing, and who he wanted to be doing it with, but the gap between reality and fantasy was growing ever wider.

“What's eating you?” Mansell asked as they plodded up another flight of concrete stairs in yet another block of flats where the lift wasn't working.

“Nothing,” Kent said sullenly, hating how much like a child he sounded but unable to stop himself. He wasn't sure they'd ever see him as anything more than the baby on the team.

“Uh uh,” Mansell grunted and Kent caught him rolling his eyes at Riley who shushed him with a slap to his arm.

“You sure you okay, sweetie?” she asked and Kent knew she was just being kind but it sent a hot spike of disgust down his spine.

“I'm fine,” he growled, and stormed off to the next flat, leaving them trailing after him.

* * * * *

No suspects, no motive, no clue. Same old, same old.

Kent tidied up his desk and notes automatically, not even aware any more that he was doing it. Chandler's briefing had been unusually brusque and everyone was now on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The call came in just as he was considering taking Riley's advice about starting fresh in the morning. There was a potential witness who wanted to talk that night. When he told Chandler about it he hadn't seemed enthused but told Kent to look into it.

“Take a uniform with you,” he added and Kent nodded, stopped before he left the room as if willing Chandler to say something else, and when he didn't headed downstairs to talk to the duty sergeant.

* * * * *

The PC he'd been assigned was someone he'd worked with before, Aditi Singh, someone he actually didn't mind spending time with, even if she did talk too much.

“So this is what, the fourth Angel of Death?” she was asking now, as Kent changed his shoes from the back of the police car they'd borrowed. “Have you got any clues? What did Forensics say? What have -”

“Maybe save the questions until after we've talked to...” Kent started to open his notebook to check the name but Aditi got there first.

“Charles Fortescue. Sounds made up doesn't it? But nothing came up when I ran him through the database.”

Kent nodded and locked up the car.

“You still pining over what's his name?” she asked.

Kent sighed. Was it really that obvious?

“Come on,” she said, “work'll take your mind off it.”

Work was the problem but she had a way of making him feel ridiculous without leading to him resenting her, which was a trait he wished his other colleagues had developed.

* * * * *

After plodding up five flights of stairs (of course the lift wasn't working, when were they ever?) Kent was just beginning to ask himself why he'd even bothered becoming a police officer when a figure dressed all in black slithered through the window of the very flat they were heading towards.

There was something so malevolent about the way it moved, not quite human he'd tell Mansell later, that he and Aditi both froze, petrified for an instant, before he remembered that it was his job to do something and told her to call it in. And then he did exactly what he didn't want to do and ran towards the flat.

He'd taken to carrying a heavy duty torch with him so when the door unsurprisingly didn't yield to his shoulder and no one answered his calls he took a deep breath and then smashed the window. Just as he reached down to crawl through Aditi was at his side and there came a high pitched cry, more like that of an animal than a human, from deep inside the flat.

“What the fuck was that?” Aditi asked.

“I don't – I don't know. How long till back-up?”

“You're not thinking of going in there?”

Chandler would he thought to himself, but wisely didn't say out loud.

“It's my job. You stay here, in case he comes out the front door.”

“Got it. Just be careful, yeah?”

Kent nodded and slipped inside the flat.

* * * *

It was dark and quiet. Too dark and too quiet.

With a constant stream of “what would Chandler do?” echoing with each footstep Kent slowly made his way forward, clasping his torch tightly in his hand glad that he had it but at the same time not sure if he wanted to see whatever it might reveal.

He could hear sirens outside which gave him the extra boost to actually turn on the torch and throw its beam around the room. The TV was lying on one side, as was one of the chairs.

The only thing he could hear was his own heart pounding in his ears.

Then, finally, he heard a scritching sound like nails against a chalkboard.

What he wanted to do was close his eyes and wish himself away. What he did was follow the sound to the back of the flat, his torch casting shadows he tried not to jump at and his heart beating so fast he thought he'd keel over at any moment.

He spotted the blood first, and then the hand, spread out, palm upwards. He then moved the torch around the room, took in the body, clearly dead and scanned further out half expecting someone or something to jump out at him at any moment.

And then the world went black.

* * * * *

He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. Because there was no way that Chandler was sitting in a chair next to his bed and reading a book of poetry out loud.

“What the bloody hell is that shite?” Miles asked from the doorway and Kent knew that it was very real. He heard the other chair next to the bed scrape across the floor and could feel Chandler's flinch.

“It's just some poetry. I thought Kent might like it.”

There was a long, pregnant pause and Kent wished that he was floating outside of his body so he could see what their expressions were like.

“You know what,” Miles said, “this isn't fair. To him or to you. Do it, don't do it, but make a bloody decision.”

“There's no decision to....”

“Bollocks.”

The silence turned tense and Kent realised he was holding his breath.

“I can't,” Chandler said.

“Well Kent isn't bloody going to, is he?” Miles asked, slowly, quietly, almost sympathetically.

And no, he probably wasn't. Not if there was a chance. Not if there was never going to be a chance.

“I -”

Whatever Chandler was going to say was cut short by the nurse brusquely informing them that visiting hours had ended over an hour ago. They tried to play the police card but she wasn't having any of it and they left, though not before Kent heard Chandler leave the book on the table by his head and brush a finger along the inside of Kent's wrist.

That wasn't nothing, he told himself. No matter what Miles and Chandler himself might say, that wasn't nothing.

It would just have to be enough.

* * * * *

They never did find the killer. Same old, same old.


End file.
